


strawberries and strangers

by bonca



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-19
Updated: 2018-04-19
Packaged: 2019-04-25 05:02:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14371470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bonca/pseuds/bonca
Summary: "Do you like strawberries?" A voice above him asks. What the fuck? Dan didn't come here to be questioned by some stranger.





	strawberries and strangers

**Author's Note:**

> hiiiiiiiiiyaaaaaaa here is a lame and poorly written and edited oneshot that took me like 2 weeks !!!! i don't know whether its two weeks actually i have no sense of time whatsoever !!! anyways this is for tumblr user daniellhowll because they're a super cool person and their url used to be something along the lines of cloud gazing and it inspired meeee!! here u go<3

_Soulmates_. It's one of the many things Dan wishes isn't real. How could there be _one_ person out there that you'll happily spend the rest of your life with? How is it that you are made for each other and _only_ each other? Surely, you'd fall out of love sooner or later, but then what? You'd be stuck with that person forever, unhappy, wishing the same God damn thing Dan wishes when he's staring up at the ceiling at night; that soulmates aren't real, that everyone's only kidding themselves into thinking that they are. However, the name inked into his arm tells a completely different story.

Dan often finds himself subconsciously tracing the four-letter-long name, feeling the rough ridges of the tattoo under his finger rise and fall on his skin. His veins disappear under the name that he curses at every time he sees it in the mirror, because he hates it. Dan hates how a simple tattooed name like that can ruin his entire life.

And he's thinking about it again.

It's a beautiful, sunny day, and Dan is feeling like a thunderstorm. His feelings are colliding so heavily like black clouds and the stupid, _stupid_ name on his arm is like his lightning. Dan can never carry himself like the summer leaves that float like petals lifelessly along their branches, or the waves that crash and ripple so wonderfully from the tip of the shoreline to the blurring horizon.

And it's funny, really, how everything can be turned into a metaphor. At one time, Dan knew what he wanted in life. His ambitions were sharp like the rising shore, but in time, they fizzled out and the lines became blurry from there on. Now he's a bit of a blurry horizon, _yeah_ , that's what he is. _Not_ a boy alone in a park.

Dan runs his hands through the grass again, his eyes fixated on his clenched fists that tug harshly on the messy tufts that stick up like morning hair.

He should be getting his life together. Dan should be out there, finding the person whose name is so ridiculously and permanently etched into his skin, and he would be if he hadn't just lost his second job. He was the best at his position, if he doesn't say so himself, but the company's running out of money, so they had 'no choice but to let him go'. _Great_.

So Dan, with nothing but his phone and £2.36 in his pocket, decided to come to the park beside the beach. He tremendously regrets it now though, because everyone is eating ice cream and _God how he'd die for one_. The cheapest one is three quid.

Sighing, the boy rolls back carefully, and shades his eyes with his hands as his back presses against the bumpy texture of the grounds. He's forced to keep his eyes slightly squinted, because the sun's out, deciding that it'll finally smile down on the groggy London folk and quite literally brighten up their day as it sits in a pool of the sky.

The park's peaceful, though, so he doesn't fully regret the tiring walk here. A few seagulls swim in the blue abyss above him as they eye up the melting ice creams. A group of boys, just younger than Dan, throw a ball back and forth, yelling to each other every once in a while. Of course, a few prams and pushchairs are scattered along the seaside beside him, and some painful shrieks emit from them. But overall, it's peaceful, and Dan almost forgives himself for his lack of change.

"Do you like strawberries?" A voice above him asks quite cautiously, just after their figure drowns him in shade. _What the fuck?_ Dan didn't come here to be questioned by some stranger.

Dan pries open his eyes. They take a few seconds to adjust to the dark shadow that looms over him as it harshly contrasts against the bright sky. He doesn't even know this person, how is he to know this isn't a code for 'can I shove you in the back of my van and keep you captive in my basement for eight years?' - or at least some other absurd alternative.

"I suppose so. Why are you asking?" He internally scolds himself for answering Shadow Figure's question, because now he'll just ask more. Dan came to the park to get _rid_ of his problems, not make new ones.

The stranger laughs, and for some reason, the slight hollowness of it goes straight to Dan's chest. Is he _really_ feeling sorry for the way a stranger laughs? He thought sobbing into the rug and giving himself carpet burn or into a pot of ice cream on the floor was rock bottom, but this is a new low for Dan.

"It's nothing, really. It's just that my blind date is, like, two hours late, and she's probably not coming." Shadow Figure stops for a second, as though he's structuring the sentence in his head. After his brief pause, the stranger continues: "I mean, who _wouldn't_ run at the sight of me?"

It's only then, after another empty chuckle, that Dan sits up, and the stranger's name goes from Shadow Figure to _The Boy I Want To Marry, God He's So Hot But Probably So Straight._

His face is soft, but its edges are sharp and his features sit like trophies on his translucent skin. The stranger's hair is gelled up into a quiff, or rather a wannabe quiff, and Dan suddenly has the urge to reach up and run his hand through it. It would probably ruin the hairstyle, and lumps of gel would collect in the crevices of his fingers and nails, but he thinks it would be worth it. Glasses sit upon his nose, and they frame his face quite nicely, but the face behind them house something Dan wishes he could see up close without the smudged layer of a lense. The boy has _ridiculously_ beautiful eyes, and Dan can't help but get lost in them. They're oceans deep of palettes of blue, green swirls accompanying the shades that compliment his face so well. Specks of yellow sit with the two colours like paint, and all Dan can think of is _you could go swimming in those eyes._

"I – I'm sorry if I bothered you, you must be waiting for someone. I'll be going now. Thanks for considering it anyways." Cute Boy's voice isn't so confident anymore, and he smiles weakly at Dan before tightening his grip on his picnic basket and turning on his heel in the direction of the seaside.

"You're right, you know?" Dan mutters, loud enough for the boy to hear, before he reaches the pavement. It's risky, it's so, _so_ risky, so when the boy stops and turns back to him, his stomach does a little flip. "About me waiting for someone."

He thought the stranger's face couldn't drop any more, but he's proved wrong when the words slip off his tongue. For a moment, he feels bad.

"Oh. Well, I'm so sorry. I hope – "

"It's just a shame that he's walking away from me right now."

When Hot Guy's eyes widen in a 'really?' fashion, and his lips pull up into a grin, Dan doesn't feel bad anymore. He pats a spot on the grass next to him, smiling back at the boy.

 

* * *

 

"Okay, I have to admit, this is a pretty nice blanket you have. And _these_ – these are nice strawberries." Dan takes a bite out of one of the few fruits left, before finishing it and chucking the stem into the container.

Quiff Man laughs, and it's the most wonderful laugh Dan's ever heard. His tongue sits between his teeth, and he throws his head back slightly. "Hmm, yeah, well I know something nicer."

"And what's that?" Dan turns to look at him.

The boy thinks for a moment, staring at a strawberry stem that he's twirling in between his fingers. He smiles. " _You?_ "

Dan's stomach feels like it's blooming with so many flowers that he's going to burst. The feeling travels up his throat, and he feel like he can't breathe. How _dare_ this stranger be so incredibly nice looking and have a personality to match.

He can feel himself falling for this boy, but he shoves the thought to the back of his mind. You can't like someone after just eating half a dozen strawberries in their presence. But Dan already knows he's fucked when the stranger looks over to him, giving him _that_ smile and his stomach just flips more.

"I am _not_ nice, you'd know that if you knew me. I don't – _I don't even know your name._ " After staring into the horizon briefly, Dan turns back to Strawberry Stranger.

He's smiling widely, and a little 'oh yeah' spills from his lips. Under the sun light, his skin glows, but it probably doesn't feel as pleasant as it looks as his arms are starting to redden. Pale freckles sit upon the man's cheeks, and the space underneath his eyes are flushed. When Dan looks back up to his hair, he wants to run his hands through it all over again, and that's when he notices his ginger roots. _He dyes his hair? Hot._

Dan closes his eyes, and rolls back over to face the sky. "Don't tell me, your name's _Phil_."

Sure, Dan can't see this boy's face, but his voice is dripping with confusion when he says, "what? How – _how_ do you know that?" It makes Dan smile, and even more so when he imagines _Phil's_ face.

"Pull up my sleeve."

He hears _Phil_ trying to piece a coherent sentence together, but his vowels are falling over each other and he's doing nothing but stuttering. Phil gives up, and Dan hears him hesitantly lean over before he feels soft fingers on his hand. Phil plants his thumb in Dan's palm, and pulls up the sleeve with his other.

Dan, with his sleeved arm, reaches over and grabs a strawberry. He smiles into it as Phil pauses when he sees his own name printed in Dan's arm.

" _Dan?_ "


End file.
